Guns of the Gods Part 11

"Nay, but this one cackled to the G.o.d. Perhaps Jinendra felt compa.s.sionate toward a poor shroff (money-lender) who can not defend his suit successfully without that t.i.tle-deed. Jengal Singh died and his son, who ought to know, claims that the house was really sold to Dhulap Singh, who dallies with his suit because he suspects, but does not know, that Mukhum Da.s.s has lost the paper--eh?"

"How do you know these things?"

"Maybe the G.o.d Jinendra told! Which would be better, Mukhum Da.s.s-- to keep great silence, and be certain to receive the paper in time to defend the lawsuit,--or to talk freely, and so set others talking?"

Who knows that it might not reach the ears of Jengal Singh that the t.i.tle-deed is truly lost?"

"He who tells secrets to a priest," swore the money-lender, "would better have screamed them from the housetop.

"Nay--the G.o.d heard. The priest told the G.o.d, and the G.o.d told a certain one to whom the finder brought the paper, asking a reward. That person holds the paper now as security for silence!"

"It is against the law to keep my paper!"

"The law catches whom it can, Mukhum Da.s.s, letting all others go, like a python after monkeys in the tree-tops!"

"From whom am I to get my paper for the lawsuit at the proper time?"

"From Jinendra's priest perhaps."

"He has it now? The dog's stray offspring! I will--"

"Nay, he has it not! Be kind and courteous to Jinendra's priest, or perhaps the G.o.d will send the paper after all to Dhulap Singh!"

"As to what shall I keep silence?"

"Two matters. Firstly Chamu the butler will presently pay his son's debt.

Give Chamu a receipt with the number of the bank-note written on it, saying nothing."

"Second?"

"Preserve the bank-note carefully for thirty days and keep silence."

"I will do that. Now tell me thy name?"

Yasmini laughed. "Do thy victims repay in advance the rupees not yet lent? Nay, the price is silence! First, pay the price; then learn my name.

Go--get thy money from Chamu the butler. Breathe as much as a hint to any one, and thy t.i.tle-deed shall go to Dhulap Singh!"

Eying her like a hawk, but with more mixed emotions than that bird can likely compa.s.s, the money-lender sat his mule and watched her stride round the corner out of sight. Then, glancing over her shoulder to make sure the man's parasite was not watching her at his master's orders, she ran along the shoulder of the hill to where, in the shelter of a clump of trees, a carriage waited.

It was one of those lumbering, four-wheeled affairs with four horses, and a platform for two standing attendants behind and wooden lattice-work over the windows, in which the women-folk of princes take the air.

But there were no attendants--only a coachman, and a woman who came running out to meet her; for Yasmini, like her cousin the maharajah, did not trust too many people all at once.

"Quick, Hasamurti!"

Fussing and giggling over her (the very name means Laughter), the maid bustled her into the carriage, and without a word of instruction the coachman tooled his team down-hill at a leisurely gait, as if told in advance to take his time about it; the team was capable of speed.

Inside the carriage, with a lot more chuckling and giggling a change was taking place almost as complete as that from chrysalis to b.u.t.terfly.

The toilet of a lady of Yasmini's nice discrimination takes time in the easiest circ.u.mstances; in a lumbering coach, not built for leg-room, and with a looking-gla.s.s the size of a saucer, it was a mixture of horse-play and miracle. Between them they upset the perfume bottle, as was natural, and a shrill scream at one stage of the journey (that started a rumor all over Sialpore to the effect that Gungadhura was up to the same old game again) announced, as a matter of plain fact that Yasmini had sat on the spurs. There was long, spun-gold hair to be combed out--penciling to do to eye-brows--lac to be applied to pretty feet to make them exquisitely pretty--and layer on layer of gossamer silk to be smothered and hung exactly right. Then over it all had to go one of those bright-hued silken veils that look so casually worn but whose proper adjustment is an art.

But when they reached the bottom of the long hill and began twisting in and out among the narrow streets, it was finished. By the time they reached the temple of Jinendra, set back in an old stone courtyard with images of the placid G.o.d carved all about in the shade of the wide projecting cornice, all was quiet and orderly inside the carriage and there stepped out of it, followed by the same dark-hooded maid, a swift vision of female loveliness that flitted like a flash of light into the temple gloom.

It was not so squalid as the usual Hindu temple, although so ancient that the carving of the pillars in some places was almost worn away, and the broad stone flags on the floor were hollowed deep by ages of devotion. The gloom was pierced here and there by dim light from bra.s.s lamps, that showed carvings blackened by centuries of smoke, but there was an unlooked-for suggestion of care, and a little cleanliness that the fresh blossoms scattered here and there accentuated.

There were very few wors.h.i.+pers at that hour--only a woman, who desired a child and was praying to Jinendra as a last recourse after trying all the other G.o.ds in vain, and a half-dozen men--all eyes--who gossiped in low tones in a corner. Yasmini gave them small chance to recognize her. Quicker than their gaze could follow, a low door at the rear, close beside the enormous, jeweled image of the G.o.d, closed behind her and the maid, and all that was left of the vision was the ringing echo of an iron lock dying away in dark corners and suggesting nothing except secrecy.

The good square room she had entered so abruptly unannounced was swept and washed. Sunlight poured into it at one end through a window that opened on an inner courtyard, and there were flowers everywhere-- arranged in an enormous bra.s.s bowl on a little table--scattered at random on the floor--hung in plaited garlands from the hooks intended to support lamps. Of furniture there was little, only a long cus.h.i.+oned bench down the length of the wall beneath the window, and a thing like a throne on which Jinendra's high priest sat in solitary grandeur.

He did not rise at first to greet her, for Jinendra's priest was fat; there was no gainsaying it. After about a minute a sort of earthquake taking place in him began to reach the surface; he rocked on his center in increasing waves that finally brought him with a spasm of convulsion to the floor. There he stood in full sunlight with his bare toes turned inward, holding his stomach with both hands, while Yasmini settled herself in graceful youthful curves on the cus.h.i.+oned bench, with her face in shadow, and the smirking maid at her feet. Then before climbing ponderously back to his perch on the throne the priest touched his forehead once with both hands and came close to a semblance of bowing, the arrogance of sanct.i.ty combining with his paunch to cut that ceremony short.

"Send the girl away," he suggested as soon as he was settled into place again. But Yasmini laughed at him with that golden note of hers that suggests illimitable understanding and unfathomable mirth.

"I know the ways of priests," she answered. "The girl stays!"

The priest's fat chops darkened a shade.

"There are things she should not know."

"She knows already more in her small head than there is in all thy big belly, priest of an idol!"

"Beware, woman, lest the G.o.ds hear sacrilege!"

"If they are real G.o.ds they love me," she answered, "If they have any sense they will be pleased whenever I laugh at your idolatry. Hasamurti stays."

"But at the first imaginary insult she will run with information to wherever it will do most harm. If she can be made properly afraid, perhaps--"

Yasmini's golden laugh cut him off short.

"If she is made afraid now she will hate me later. As long as she loves me she will keep my secrets, and she will love me because of the secrets--being a woman and not a belly-with-a-big-tongue, who would sell me to the highest bidder, if he dared. I know a Brahman. Thou and I are co-conspirators because my woman's wit is sharper than thy greed. We are confidants because I know too much of thy misdeeds.

We are going to succeed because I laugh at thy fat fears, and am never deceived for a moment by pretense of sanct.i.ty or promises however vehement."

She said all that in a low sweet voice, and with a smile that would have made a much less pa.s.sionate man lose something of his self-command.

Jinendra's priest began to move uneasily.

"Peace, woman!"

"There is no peace where priests are," she retorted in the same sweet- humored voice. "I am engaged in war, not honey-gathering. I have lied sufficient times today to Mukhum Da.s.s to need ten priests, if I believed in them or were afraid to lie! The shroff will come to ask about his t.i.tle-deed. Tell him you are told a certain person has it, but that if he dares breathe a word the paper will go straight to Dhulap Singh, who will destroy it and so safely bring his lawsuit. Then let Dhulap Singh be told also that the t.i.tle-deed is in certain hands, so he will put off the lawsuit week after week, and one who is my friend will suffer no annoyance."

"Who is this friend?"

"Another one who builds no bridges on thy sanct.i.ty."

"Not one of the English? Beware of them, I say; beware of them!"

"No, not one of the English. Next, let Gungadhura be told that Tom Tripe has ever an open-handed welcome at Blaine sahib's--"

"Ah!" he objected, shaking his fat face until the cheeks wabbled.

"Women are all fools sooner or later. Why let a drunken English soldier be included in the long list of people to be reckoned with?"